Between Lovers (13 page)

I squeeze her hand and feel the dampness. Nervousness and anticipation soak her hands.

As she waves good-bye, she whispers, “Tonight.”

With dank palms, I nod. Nod and hear my old man's voice,
draw the line.

As I wait for the elevator, the secretary stares. People notice me. Not because of the books. Phone calls have been made, they have been busy shooting each other intercompany e-mail.
They know.
I see it in their eyes. Ayanna has been here before. Has been in Nicole's office.
They know.
I feel that they are waiting for me to leave so the whispering can begin.

I don't give a fuck. She's the fire in my loins. My sin in high heels.

And we're standing in a house with no floor.

Eight p.m.

The ocean has swallowed the sun. Streetlights brighten the Square.

I'm back in Jack London Square, the capitalist area named after that socialist sailor, in a place packed with people who are living for the weekend, sitting a cap pella at a red-and-white-striped table inside a loud and overcrowded TGIF, just like Magic's rambunctious TGIF down in Ladera. Everyone is sipping on alcohol, eating fried food, and thanking God it's Friday. Over and over, I keep folding and unfolding a napkin in between working on a cup of hot chocolate.

Too many conversations mix with music blasting from the back room. And that blends with an Amtrak whistle that blows a long continuous shrill. The room vibrates from a serious bass line; outside the world rumbles louder and louder as the Amtrak gets closer and closer, then passes, and the rumble dies away.

“No,
sir.”

Nicole's I-page said to meet here. Her live-in companion will show up as well.

We're to meet and take it from there.

We'll all be face-to-face, eye-to-eye.

I shake those words out of my head, sip my hot chocolate, and feel every drop of blood that races through the veins in my neck. Can smell the sweat in the palms of my hands; hear the salt as it dries, then feel new sweat replacing the old.

People are heading to Scott's Seafood, valet parking on the cobblestones.

I wipe my palms over my black jeans, straighten my black sweater, toy with my twisted mane. My reflection is in the window. I can see me, and see through me. Like I'm a ghost.

I watch women wearing braids, twists, locks, wavy Afros, short natural styles. Search for one that walks like Nicole, looks like her. All are beautiful. Some have more curves than Lombard Street. A million queens I could pursue and flatter. But my heart is elsewhere. Then my mind fucks with me again. Each woman that passes, I imagine that she's the one who laughs and does things with Nicole.

I watch women as they come inside, see one woman who looks like Tupac on a bad hair day, another who looks like Bernie Mac on crack, wonder if Nicole would be attracted to either of those.

Another woman at the bar sees me. I've made eye contact with her twice. This time we both stare too long. She touches her locks, hair that is deep red, the color of hearts and passion, with hints of deep yellow, the color of the sun at high noon, earth tone colors that work on her butterscotch complexion.

We hold the eye contact for a few moments.

She fondles her remarkable locks; the thin Sister Locks style that originated in San Diego. Her astonishing mane is almost to her shoulders. Again she touches her strength in a flirty gesture, picks up her purse and heads toward my table, and moves with grace and sex iness, the stroll of the girl from Ipanema. In her left hand is a book; I would recognize the dark orange cover from a million miles away. It's one of the books I wrote, the one from last year, the one with the hysterical wedding scene. Yep, one man's tragedy is another man's punch line. She looks at the picture on the back of the book, at me, at the picture, at me, raises the novel a bit, and I nod, pull my pen out, get ready to sign.

She says, “You look different on the back of your book. You changed your hair.”

“Thanks. Surprised to see somebody in TGIF with a book. Want me to sign—”

“That wasn't a compliment. And no. You did Nicole a disservice by writing this ... this ...
this.”

This is her. Nicole's whatchamacallit. I stand there with a stupid for-the-fans smile frozen on my face.

She's a petite woman wearing a short leather coat over a slender black dress. A silver chain with a silver ankh on her swan neck. Silver bracelets are on her left wrist, just as many as Nicole wears. Subtle nose. Generous lips painted a deep brown. Something about her, her dark brow, the strong lines in her face that are more classical than beautiful, reminds me of the French actress Juliette Binoche.

Ayanna's bracelets jingle, sing an aggravating song when she stuffs her copy of my book inside her coat pocket. Pretty much bends the paperback to death getting it inside, as if it's not worth the price on the cover. Then she greets me eye-to-eye.

“My name is Ayanna.”

I say, “Your name means blessed.”

“In Native American culture, yes.” The language in her eyes tells me that she's not impressed with my knowledge of things that would get me points playing Trivial Pursuit. Her stoic stare tells me that not much impresses her. Her voice is strong, articulate, wraps around me, seeps into my flesh; her tone is condescending. “It also means beautiful flower. I prefer the latter. Nicole prefers the latter as well.”

I pause when she says Nicole's name. That catches me off guard.

“So,” I exhale as I put my pen away. “Why does Nicole like beautiful flower better than blessed?”

“Aren't you a nosy little fucker? That's between Nicole and me.”

I say, “Guess I made it here first.”

“Nope. I was here before you. Saw you strut in from your fuckhaven across the way.”

That catches me in my gut. I nod, stay polite to this woman, ask, “How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to watch you watch other women.”

“Making accusations?”

“Just observations.”

She shakes my hand, her flesh warm, and then she looks at her palm.

I ask, “What are you doing?”

“Counting my fingers.”

“Maybe I should do the same.”

“I'm not the thief.”

“I've known her for seven years. So who's the thief?”

Her mouth opens like she's about to say something important, but she rests in her seat, sips her water, then speaks. “Don't irritate the alligator until after you cross the stream.”

“My feelings exactly.”

Ayanna sits across from me, our chairs next to the window. Sits like she's the perfect lady.

With an unimpressed tisk she says, “I see your books everywhere.”

She said that like she's been trying to escape my face, pretend I don't exist, but can't.

“Black History Month,” I say. “We be boss for twenty-eight days. Twenty-nine in a leap year. HNIC until March rolls around. Then we get downgraded to servants and returned to the master publisher, or tossed in the back forty.”

With sarcasm she delivers, “Nicole says that you were almost a
New York Times
best-seller.”

“Almost.” I nod. “Next book maybe.”

“Then NYT must mean Nigga You Tripping. That's the list you need to be on. Your writing is trite and commercial.”

“So I've heard.”

“You're no Baldwin.”

I'm jarred. She said that as if she knew about my moment in Chicago, as if she made that comparison based on my past, as if she were there standing next to me. I breathe through my nose, feel the lines grow in my forehead as I respond with mild venom, “Never said I was.”

Her teeth grind. “There are many writers right here in the Bay much better than you, people who write about something important, but you do better than them. I don't understand.”

I shift. “You'll have to ask the people who buy the books.”

“Maybe better to ask the pimps who are selling them.”

Her eyes stay away from mine as mine avoid her. Not out of fear. But out of pretense to be in fear. At times it's better to pretend to be weak. To make your opponent over-confident. The breakdown of an opponent starts with the mind, disabling him or her mentally. Ayanna wasted no time with her attack.

In my periphery, I search for flaws in this creature that calls herself Ayanna. She has amber, catlike eyes, sensuous lips, an aerodynamic build. The brain is the sexiest part of any creature, so I don't know if a cerebral deficiency is her flaw. I find flaws in others. Recognize the flaws in me. Flaws remind me that there's a difference between what's real and what isn't.

Ice covers her voice. “Nicole tells me you have an eatapuss complex.”

“Does she?”

“I guess it's a physical thing.”

I refuse to wince. “She's never said anything about you. Guess she's not impressed with ... whatever you do.”

The music in the back room kicks up three levels. People are dancing, creating so much heat, and with the humidity that Ayanna has brought to the table, it begins to feel like July in Houston, and I'm inside a car at high noon, windows up, air conditioner off.

Ayanna says, “Every man's fantasy.”

“What?”

“She's offering you every man's fantasy.”

I've thought about that since Nicole has eased her carnal desires on my table. Once upon a time, that was my fantasy, to be able to give and receive pleasure with more than one, to create euphoria for two. In some parts of my brain, maybe the primitive part, maybe the part that holds fantasies that will forever be unfulfilled, it still rests in an easychair, sipping on lemonade made from fruit nurtured in the California sun. But that fantasy was never meant to be reality. And it didn't include someone I was involved with on a serious level, always a distant face on the cover of
Ebony,
or a
Jet
centerfold, maybe even a hood-rat-looking Miss Scoop with a Pa-DOW! body, but never Nicole. Experience has taught me that one woman is enough. One is drama; two is trouble. And I'm staring trouble between the eyes.

I tell her, “You've got a helluva mouth. Got your ass way up on your shoulders.”

“I take that as a compliment. Never been good at make-believe.”

She twists a napkin in her hand, chews her bottom lip, then turns her eyes away. My fingertips are tapping anything they can reach: my legs, arms, the table.

She leans in. “You don't understand what we represent, do you?”

“Maybe I don't.”

“Figures. I'll skip the psychology and dumb it down for you. Without you, Nicole has no interest in me. And without me, she has no interest in you.”

I laugh the kind of laugh that tells her she almost had my respect, almost had me by the throat. “So, you're telling me, in a Psych 101,
Fraiser
kind of way, that combined we make her complete.”

“Just repeating what I've been told. That's the bullshit she's feeding me.”

“Bullshit's out of season in this stable. I'm more important to her than you.”

“Oh, really? Let me hear your argument.”

“Adam and Eve, Ayanna. Adam and Eve.”

“The greatest myth ever told.”

“Truth is always powerful.” I say that, and for a moment, I hear my old man's voice coming out of my body. “Truth is always powerful.”

“Your weakness is that you think like a man. A dick will never be more powerful than a pussy.”

Again I'm jarred by the contradiction of her feminine face, articulate words, intellectual eyes, and brutal lexicon. First my career, now my dick. She's trying to dismantle me.

I reply, “Now I know where she gets her new crass-ness from.”

“Let's face it. Men are on this earth for two reasons: to kill each other and fuck over women.”

“So do you piss standing or squatting?”

She nods and says, “Touché.”

Then she stares out the window as if I'm unimportant, as if I'm a pebble destined for the curb and her heartbroken face will one day be engraved on Mt. Rushmore.

She says, “Look, I'm upset. Long day. When I'm pissed and tipsy my tongue gets pretty sharp.”

I warn her: “And iron sharpens iron.”

“Proverbs twenty-seventh chapter, verse seventeen.”

“Biblical knowledge, too. I'm impressed.”

“Don't be. Not my intention. But impressing someone like you is always easy.”

“You don't take compliments too well, do you?”

“From those I admire, yes. You misused the scripture, which is typical. I see that you do as men do and bend the Word until it fits your own purpose.”

I sip the last of my hot chocolate. The waitress stops by. She pretty much loses her mind: “Oh, my God.
It's you. It's you, it's you, it's you.”

I raise my head, reach for my pen, but she's talking to Ayanna.

“You're the attorney who took that racist Christian school to court. Don't tell me, don't tell me. They kicked the kid out because he wore locks. The kid was a straight-A kid. His mom and dad were from the islands and that hairstyle was part of their culture and you—”

“And you know the whole case. Impressive. I didn't think anybody cared.”

“You were awesome.” The girl is so excited that she sits down at our table. The girl is lost in time, drowning in awe, as if she is facing an Amazon from the island of Themyscira. “Oh, my God. This is a trip. Seeing you on television, the way you handled the system and didn't back down, I mean, you went deep and pissed so many people off—Oh, my God. I'm having an intellectual conversation with you. We're like, talking to each other on the real. This is awesome. I wish my group could meet you.”